


Lovesong

by dandelion_clock



Series: Cry for the Moon [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 23:12:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelion_clock/pseuds/dandelion_clock
Summary: He’s been in love with her from the start. Brave, smart, stubborn Tonks.





	Lovesong

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to turn into courtship by committee.'  
'It's okay.'  
Tonks huffs a soft, derisive laugh. _'Professor McGonagall_ just told you you should be with me.'  
'Shouldn't she have?'  
'It's not exactly romantic.'  
'It doesn't matter.'  
'It does to me.' 

There's an ache in Remus's chest that isn't just grief. Dumbledore's dead, impossibly so, and he feels as if the sky just fell in on his head.But even so there's a sharp twist of sorrow for Tonks. Tonks who shouldn't be trailing at his side, on the dismal walk back to Hogsmeade. Tonks who should have all the romance she deserves. Should be taken dancing by candlelight, and serenaded under the stars. 

(Sirius serenaded Remus once. Drunk as a skunk at three in the morning, singing _You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me_ at the top of his lungs beneath the bedroom window of their Chelsea apartment. 

He woke all the neighbours.) 

'You okay?' Tonks asks.  
'Yes.'  
'Really?'  
He knows what she's asking. 'No, not really. But it's not…' 

Remus coped, after Sirius's death. Through the seconds (holding on to Harry), through the minutes (a room full of terrified, wounded teenagers), through the hours, and the days, and the weeks (the battle over, the war just begun) that followed. Remus coped, with the mechanical precision of clockwork. 

Right up until he didn't. 

Molly and Tonks tracked him down in an abandoned Muggle squat in Hackney. He'd been missing for three days, they told him later, and appeared to be on his fifth bottle of firewhisky. 

(Remus lacked the heart to tell them that this was unlikely. That the habits of a seasoned alcoholic die hard, and that they should have checked the toilet cistern for empties.) 

'Alright,' Tonks says quietly. 'That's good.'  
'You?'  
'It so fucking horrible, isn't it? Death.' 

He's been in love with her from the start. Brave, smart, stubborn Tonks. It's just that there was Sirius, eclipsing everything else. And now there isn't Sirius, but what's left of Remus isn't enough. Tonks should have someone whole. Not half a man, with half a heart. 

'Fucking horrible,' he agrees, softly. 

There's no sign of Aberforthwhen they get back to the Hog's Head. He's probably heard the news, Remus thinks, and wants to be left in private.  
'Do you fancy a drink?' Tonks asks.  
'Tonks - '  
'I don't think I'll be able to sleep.' 

They help themselves, from behind the bar, to something called _MacFiddledee's Firewhisky_. It tastes like aniseed and burns like acid. 

'What happens next?'  
'We carry on fighting.'  
'The Order - '  
'Kingsley could take charge, perhaps.'  
Tonks quirks a feeble smile. 'Not Elphias?'  
'Merlin help us.' 

Her eyes are huge in her pale, pointed face and her hair is limp and tucked behind her ears. There's a smudge that could be blood on her cheek. And Remus wants to pull her into his arms, and kiss away the sadness from her lips. But he's already made that mistake in the past. The first time when Sirius was alive, and the second time six months after Sirius died. The second time they ended up in bed. 

Remus isn't proud of it. Knows that it was stupid and selfish. But he doesn't understand how that led to _this._ To arguing about their relationship as if in some way it already exists. Not a miserable muddle of grief and sex but something with four corners and a roof that Remus, according to Nymphadora Tonks (and, it seems, to the rest of their friends), is just to stubborn to accept. 

For a little while they drink in silence, and Remus thinks about the scene by Bill's bed. About Molly and Arthur and Professor McGonagall ganging up on him in public. He wonders what Dumbledore would have said. He probably wouldn't have, come to think of it. He'd have suddenly become extremely interested in a bedpost, or a beam of moonlight, and have gazed at it with amused fascination until they'd all stopped acting like idiots. 

'Sickle for them.'  
'Sorry?'  
'You were smiling.' 

He wonders, not for the first time, if Dumbledore had ever been in love. It seems impossible that someone so extraordinary should never have felt that kind of passion. Should never have inspired it in another person. But the old man was so very private, and wove such intricate webs of secrets. Something must have happened, Remus thinks. Some terrible betrayal or unbearable loss, and perhaps he didn't have a Tonks. Didn't have someone stubborn enough to keep tugging at the loose threads. To unravel the layers he wound around his heart. 

And Remus can hardly bear that thought. The though of not _having a Tonks._

'You're right,' he says suddenly. 'We should.'  
'Should what?'  
'Should...me and you. _Us.'_  
'I don't know what you're saying, Remus.'  
'I can't be good enough for you. But...fuck it, Tonks. I can try, can't I?' 

Tonks is watching him with puzzled eyes. And Remus knows he's not doing this right. That he's letting her down, once again, because he isn't the real thing. The starry-eyed lover. The Real Boy. 

'Isn't that for me to decide?'  
'What?'  
'Whether you're _good enough.'_  
'Tonks, I'm saying I want to try!'  
'You should be _choosing,'_ she says. 'Not _trying_.' 

He understood how Sirius worked. Had come to know him inside out. Every irrational thought process, every idiotic, impetuous instinct. Sirius was so absolute, someone it often hurt to love, but who wasn't difficult to interpret. 

Whereas Tonks is young and challenging, is still finding herself, and always changing. Tonks belongs to a new generation, the ones who grew up between two wars, who had the time to question everything. And Remus, if he wants to keep her... 

What's left of himself is the best he can give her. 

So he stands up from his seat, and falls to his knees. 

'Nymphadora Tonks, will you marry me?' 

  


~

  


He's had this dream a hundred times. 

The details vary, but the setting is always the same. 

It's the wrecked bedroom of the Shrieking Shack. Moonlight filters through the cracks in the boarded-up window, and standing beside it is Sirius. A gaunt, long-haired Sirius of thirty-six. 

And Remus knows that he's not a ghost, just the Sirius who lives inside Remus's head. But that doesn't temper the wave of want, of longing and lust and tenderness. Doesn't stop him from taking Sirius in his arms, or kissing his wide, beautiful mouth. 

'Wotcher, Moony.'  
'Hello, Padfoot.'  
'Miss me?'  
'No need to sound so smug about it.'  
'Death has its little compensations.'  
'Insensitive git.'  
'You love me.'  
'Maybe.' 

It's always permutations of the same conversation, punctuated by hungry kisses, until Remus wakes to daylight and loneliness. 

But this time, he knows, it has to be different. 

'I've got something to tell you.'  
'Can't it wait?'   
Sirius is unbuttoning Remus's robes, and isn't looking at his face.  
'It's quite important,' Remus says.  
A huff. 'Go on then.'  
'I'm in love with Tonks.' 

He waits for Sirius's eyes to flash. For the bitter, unhappy twist of his lips. 

But instead Sirius merely shrugs. 'I know,' he says. 'I knew from the start.'  
'And I'm still in love with you.'  
'I know that too.'  
'So what should I do?' 

He wants Sirius to rant and shout. To throw barbed words the way he would have in life. 

'Remus, I'm dead.'  
'No.'  
_'Yes.'_  
'I can't let you go. I _can't._ Sirius...' 

Dream Sirius lets Remus pull him close and hide his face in the curve of his neck. Runs soothing hands down Remus's back, and speaks very gently. 

'I've already left.' 

~

Remus wakes with tears on his face, and with Tonks sleeping peacefully in his arms. 

Her hair is bright pink in the morning sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter twenty-nine-and-a-half of _The Half Blood Prince_ :-)


End file.
